Tenderfooted freshmen and seasoned alumni alike can find Penn State to be a mysterious place, with its hundreds of buildings, thousands of people, and stories too numerous to count. This Is Penn State: An Insider’s Guide to the University Park Campus can help orient and enlighten anyone with an interest in Penn State, from visiting parents to lifelong State College residents.

For readers with a desire to get outside and get moving, This Is Penn State serves as a guidebook to the University Park campus. Augmented by four detailed color maps, the book progresses from west campus to east, moving in a logical sequence from building to building that allows readers to understand and appreciate how each area developed.

But This Is Penn State does more than simply take the reader on a leisurely walking tour of the campus. It documents the rich history that lies beneath the surface of the Penn State experience, offering facts and figures, essays and anecdotes, obscure trivia, notable quotations, and a wealth of other information for anyone interested in Penn State’s past, present, or future. Forty of the University’s most prominent buildings and areas are highlighted in the book, accompanied by more than 120 illustrations, ranging from historical photographs to architectural sketches of buildings not yet completed. Essays by veteran Penn Staters Leon Stout, Craig Zabel, and Gabriel Welsch cover the University’s history, architecture, and changing physical landscape.

Scattered throughout the book are little-known facts to educate and amuse—facts such as:

• One of Penn State’s most popular arts venues, the Pavilion Theater, was built in 1915 as a livestock judging arena. The basement, now used for acting and dance classes, was once home to the meatcutting laboratory.

• Penn State’s thriving squirrel population had its humble beginnings as four pairs of grey squirrels purchased by the University in 1925 for a total of $32 and “planted” on the campus.

• The skeleton of Old Coaly, the legendary mule who hauled the limestone from a College Avenue quarry to build the original Old Main, currently resides in a display case on the first floor of the HUB–Robeson Center.

Over the last 150 years, Penn State has maintained an impressive dedication to scholarship, research, and service to the community. In honor of the University’s sesquicentennial, Penn State Press is proud to offer This Is Penn State as its gift to everyone who feels a connection with “dear old State."